Things Unsaid
by Victoria G
Summary: Shizuru and Natsuki, Carnival aftermath. Short fic.


Disclaimer: These characters are not my own.

Author: Victoria G

Things Unsaid.

She didn't plan to say the things she wants…not out loud, never to her. The things she wants are not the things she should. She keeps them hidden in her eyes, in the politeness she wields like an invisible sword, cutting in a way that can never be blocked because it lies undetectable, beneath the surface. They burn the inside her, like some inexhaustible flame licking at her heart. She laughs when it all becomes too much, when the intensity of her feelings reaches saturation point. Still they seeped into the cracks, because secrets and desires move as water, slow and willful, finding a way through even stone. They waited for the algid caress of darker passions, turning to ice, widening the space between control and need. There are shadows and whispers of it in the way she teases even now, an undertow that pulls both of them beneath the calmness and serenity she otherwise projects. She intended to have it remain that way….always.

She remembers the exact moment she realized what her own feelings meant. When the understanding that the love she could never speak had essentially doomed her most precious person broke over her. If she were to lose, then it would end both of them, if she were to win, it would mean losing the thing that mattered the most. Either way, Natsuki would die and it would be because of her. She remembers sitting, legs tucked beneath her in the dorm, remembers how gravity seemed to increase, as if her thoughts had physical weight. It was a surge so strong it pinned her to floor, the guilt crushing in its immensity. She remembers making the decision then, to devote herself entirely to keeping her precious person alive, to that end only, to abandon concern for the cost. It was her doing in the first place and so it was her responsibility to undo.

And then that night. She hadn't anticipated the emotional toll it would take on her, the weakening of her defenses, her restraint. She couldn't know what seeing the girl like that would do to her. To look on her while she slept, body recovering from damage she'd failed to prevent, and know that it would never be, no maybe, no dream… it wouldn't… because for her most precious person, she had decided to sacrifice herself. The stolen kisses and touches, they were an indulgence she was ashamed of… desperation made action. Perhaps it was karma, having it all thrown back in her face, seen through eyes that had no understanding. Her hand was forced. She had no choice but to admit it, because her truth was being tossed out in the open so carelessly, as if it were unimportant. It was displayed and judged and the indignity of it, the casual treatment of her bared soul was steel in her veins. Her weakness, voiced in that particular way, was a knife to her heart, a clearing of the haze that held her like a spell. A statue, she stood, everything collecting at the edge of her mask, dripping, unhurried and relentless as it carved her out, made it all too easy. She surrendered completely, to the pain that had filled her past the point of composure. All that followed was a blur.

She still wakes in a cold sweat, remembering. The terrible desires still linger in her fingertips, the sensation that she is lost fills her once more. Love…is it only hers that is a descent into madness… _a dangerous thing? _Because it is not shared? Because she holds it down and it pulls her with? Or simply because of her own frailty? It is not the destruction she wrought, the faces of those she destroyed, it is a single sound that tears her apart. She hears the echoes of her friend's scream, the raw betrayal, the way she shrunk away in fear… for actions she could never justify. The guilt of all she has done grips her, pushes her back underneath, where the currents are too strong to overcome.

"Natsuki." She whispers, tasting the name, forgetting herself. The forgiveness the girl gives her is not deserved, only drops her further into despair. Their friendship is her most cherished possession and it is her curse. She cannot be rid of it, cannot bear to part with it for all the same reasons she should. In the night she wonders if this will break her, how long she can hold all of it in. Maybe forever, maybe only until the next time that girl looks at her with eyes like emeralds, her trust an extravagance she feels sick in accepting. She pretends, as she always has, that everything is okay, for the sake of her precious person, to keep her blind to the terrible truth of her own aching hollowness.

"… hey." A voice, low, to another's ear unemotional, but she hears the worry that laces the three letters together, to form a single syllable. It floats to her from the darkened doorway where the girl stands, twisting itself around a pounding heart.

She smiles, because the curve of her lips locks in the terror, the panic that still scratches at her nerves. "It is late. Natsuki should be sleeping."

Fingers fall into dark hair, itching the back of a long neck, tendons tightening as she turns and looks to the floor, swallows, something gnawing at her, something she doesn't know how to describe or define. When she stays here, she does not sleep, she listens from the couch, waits for the uneven breathing, the small sounds that pass unchecked from normally guarded lips, the deep gasp, the rustle of fabric. She has never come to check on her friend before though, even when shuddering, airy sighs squeeze through the cracked bedroom door. The younger woman is afraid, afraid to intrude, afraid to know why.

"Shizuru…" Words are often a puzzle to the girl who rests slightly hunched against the moulding; she isn't sure how to put them together, how to make the picture she wants. "Are you okay?" She hates that she can't put more than three or four in a line with any true meaning or eloquence. Her helplessness makes her angry, is heat that curls her fingers into fists, while she tries to will her anxiousness into something tangible, so she can beat it into submission.

"Of course." Another smile that only makes the dark haired woman frown. _Do you even know you cry in your sleep?_ She wants to say, but can't, because there are things they never speak about and the nightmares are one of them. She has forgiven the woman that lays half-sitting up, on the bed, who with just twenty feet between them feels a lifetime away. If anyone had told she would forgive such a thing, she would have laughed in their face. The feeling of shock, of violation had been intense in the moment she discovered what had occurred… hurt was the only thing that stayed. In some way, she understood. Their world had turned over and inside out; she has images screwed into her mind of her friends, good people, people she cares for, their faces contorted into murderous rage or drained of all will to live. There are things she saw and felt and saw others feel that will scare her for the rest of her life and the girl who loves her, who stirs and shakes her, is no different. They were all made human, opened up and exposed in ways they weren't equipped to handle. Her green eyes fix on the silvery tracks trailing down cheeks; they grab flecks of moonlight, reflecting it, but she says nothing. What is there to say? She wants to hold the other woman. She doesn't speak her desires, she just wants…to try things out…she needs touch and movement to clear her mind, to cement her feelings into place. This is too delicate a thing for that. To some degree she realizes that one of them will have to be different, will have to bend. They dance around each other as they always have, yet now they both understand it is only a dance and both of them are tired of the steps they have learned to follow. _Help me_, she wants to say, _tell me what to do_, but she can't. "I… have nightmares too…" A stupid, childish thing tumbles from her mouth, as if because they have something in common, everything else will fall into place… and said so quietly too, like she were some poor creature, small and alone…embarrassing almost to the extent that she turns on heel to leave.

Crimson eyes lift, the veil dissipating for a second. Finally she sees pain, deep pain, penetrating and breath catching and enough to make her wrap an arm around herself, a gesture of protection. The emotion is gone in a second, encapsulated by the enigmatic, playful indifference that Natsuki has grown to resent… the shroud that prevents her from understanding anything beneath it. "Had I known, I would have…" That teasing tone, but to the dark-haired girl's surprise it is left unfinished, as if the other girl developed a sudden distaste for it. They are silent for quite sometime, no eye contact, no words, no motion. The inaction is suffocating. "Still?"

It is a question, though it sounds to Natsuki like it isn't. It sounds to her like a statement she wishes weren't true, a lament. The melodic cadence of the other woman's speech is absent and the change makes her voice almost unrecognizable. "Yeah, sometimes." She says, another pull of nails through her hair, it is nervous habit. Shizuru's guilt is palpable, solid, like a stair she trips over constantly. Her bad dreams have nothing to do with the Carnival, not since right when it happened… and that was a nightmare only because the idea of it … a kiss without her permission, something forced on her before she was ready… a kiss at all scared her. It doesn't cause the same reaction in her now, since she made her confession in that ruined church, since she willingly pressed her lips to her friend's. Some days she finds herself watching the other woman, gaze tracing the lines of her mouth… wondering what it would feel like to touch them to hers for longer than just a heartbeat. These new desires complicate what is already hard enough for her.

She finds it unusual that the other woman does not press her for anything more and wonders what visions plague her friend's mind in the middle of the night. The bulk of Natsuki's nightmares are about falling into dark water, being trapped beneath the waves, sinking, forgotten and cold as water fills her, as her mother and Duran slip away, of waking up without them. Her memories ricochet inside her, propelling her toward the woman whose face is hidden in hanging strands of chestnut hair, and she quietly takes a seat beside her, placing a hand on her knee, the skin cool to the touch.

"I guess… I don't know… I worry." To her own ears, she sounds like one of the few boys at school who tried to talk to her, equal parts naive and awkward… easy to dismiss and she feels herself blushing at her own floundering attempt at expressing herself. Eyes are kept down, watching her own hand resting on soft, smooth flesh that is just the slightest shade lighter than her own. She's struck by the thought that hers and the hand lying on the mattress are difficult to tell apart, very nearly the same size, nails short and unpainted.

"You should not. Please…" The tone is a strange mix of emotions, it is soft and hard, firm and pleading and it confuses her. The knee is pulled from beneath her touch, tucked away and covered as she lies down, moving back… away. "I will feel terrible if Natsuki is tired all day because of something so silly." Wine colored eyes do not look her way and that is how she knows the emotion is still there, that the curtains have not been completely drawn. She doesn't know how to help Shizuru when she is like this even though she prefers the realness. The younger girl decides on a risk, to climb over her friend, lying on her side, pulling a body that is wooden with tension against her own. Her arms drapes across a waist that is moving unevenly. Her hand covers another that is very much its match, easing the tiny tremors that run through it. _I'll figure out a way to make this better_ she wants to whisper. She is glad for their positioning, as a blush touches her face and neck again, her arm is around another person… is around Shizuru…she can smell her, the shampoo and another light scent that belongs only to her. She shouldn't feel like this with so much sadness radiating from the body against hers, so much it hurts her to think about. Another attempt at the dance they both know by heart. "If Natsuki wanted to cuddle…"

A brushstroke of a kiss, just the lightest press against a bare shoulder stops it, a new step, and the woman whose heart has tripled its speed does not know what her next move is. She cannot find words to refuse something she feels so unworthy of, but wants with every piece of her that remains. "Shh." The dark-haired girl says, close to the shell of an ear because when they talk they say nothing, because the things unsaid are more important.

END.


End file.
